


And I Think I Like How the Day Sounds

by CyPanache



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: F/M, Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-30
Updated: 2011-07-30
Packaged: 2017-10-22 00:07:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/231418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CyPanache/pseuds/CyPanache
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben feels like he’s pretty much adjusted to the craziness that is Pawnee . . . But none of this prepares him for a drunk Ann Perkins banging on the door of his motel room at two in the morning the night Chris breaks up with her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And I Think I Like How the Day Sounds

**Author's Note:**

> Set post 3x06 - Indianapolis
> 
> Written for the [leslie_ben](leslie-ben.livejournal.com) Hiatus Fest Challenge - prompt "Third Wheel/Observer"

Okay, so here’s the thing. Ben feels like he’s pretty much adjusted to the craziness that is Pawnee.

Disproportionate number of media personalities to total town population? _Check._

A four hour town-meeting on the contents of a time capsule? _Impressive display of civic involvement.  
_  
Launch party for micro-brewed perfume by a guy named Dennis Fienstein? _Where do I show up?  
_  
Taking fashion advice from a guy who wears an ascot and shops at Brooks Brother’s Boys? _Why not?_

But none of this prepares him for a drunk Ann Perkins banging on the door of his motel room at two in the morning the night Chris breaks up with her. ( _Ann declared this to be official breakup somewhere between her third and fourth shot, because Chris did it wrong before and what kind of- “asshole makes you feel good when you break up? It’s not fair. How am I supposed to send him angry text messages after that.” Since Ann is here and Chris is not and Ben values his life, he’s going with her interpretation. Break up? What break up? The cad._ )

“Leslie has ten copies of every course catalog the Pawnee Parks and Recreation department ever produced. Eeeeeevery one. All of them. It’s like hundreds of thousands. Like a wall.”

“Umm,” It’s way too late, and he’s a good two beers from coherent, and, “Huh?”

Ann doesn’t give him a chance to get his bearings before she’s pushed through the front door. And oh god, Leslie’s very drunk best friend in standing in the middle of his room clad in her pajamas and . . . Are those, bunny slippers?

And _how_ is Leslie’s very, _very_ , drunk best friend in his room?

“Did you-? Did you _drive_ here?” He’s seen the chart. There is no way this ends well for him.

“Leslie took my keys.”

“So, how-?”

“Took a cab.” She snaps her fingers in his face. “Keep up, Benji.”

“Okay so you took a cab to my motel in the middle of the night, to tell me Leslie has a Park’s course catalogue collection?” No, no it doesn’t sound any saner out loud.

“Oh! And bird houses! She has like a ton, like three or something.”

“Bird houses.” He has absolutely no idea what’s happening and repetition seems like the safest course of action right now.

“Yup.” Ann confirms, popping the ‘p’ with a kind of serious focus. Then as if that’s the pin in the balloon, she slumps down on the corner of his bed, suddenly deflated of whatever’s been driving her. “Yup.” She murmurs again dropping her head, then in the hairpin turn of logic of the truly drunk, she looks back up, “Is this a thing?”

“I’m sorry?”

“This. Is this a thing you and Chris do to, I don’t know, pass the time? You go from town to town seducing women with your good looks and ridiculous positivity and health nut ways, and then ride off into the sunset like . . . accountant Casanovas.”

“Auditors.” Ben corrects, latching on to just about the only thing he understood in that entire sentence. “And how does this relate to Leslie’s bird houses exactly?”

“Whatever!” Ann throws up her hands, then drops them despondently, and looks up at him pleadingly, “Does he always do this?”

He does, but he doesn’t. Chris is a serial dater. If they’re in a town for more than a few weeks, Chris connects with someone. It’s what he does, how he copes. Chris makes friends and dates beautiful women and promises things he wants to deliver but can’t. Ben connects with no one and never promises anything. And it works for them. For three years they’ve gotten by, eeked out an existence, and Ben can’t tell you that Chris’s life is any less lonely than his. Because it’s not, it’s just different.

But Pawnee is breaking all the rules, because Chris has never asked for an extension and Ben has never had people show up to his motel room and he doesn’t know how to explain to a trashed Ann Perkins that the fact Chris actually managed to break up with her twice means something ( _the guy really isn’t good with bad news_ ).

Still Ann looks devastated, and as long as she’s here he’s obviously not getting any sleep, and at least they’ve gotten off the very weird and terribly disconcerting Casanova comparison. So he drags the desk chair over and sits down in front of her.

“Look, Chris . . . and I’m not making excuses for him, because believe me when I tell you, that there are days when I think my life would be so much easier if Chris wasn’t who he was. But Chris is a good guy. He likes people, likes making them happy. All that stuff he says when he comes to town, he genuinely means all of it. But our jobs . . . they suck, we come into sinking ships and the only way to keep them afloat is to throw things over board. Things that matter, jobs and programs and departments that matter. So you do what you have to, and you cling to whatever bright spots you can find.”

“So what, I’m supposed to be flattered?”

“No. That’s not-” Ben sighs. God he’s doing this all wrong, half-justifying Chris, half-explaining himself, and solving absolutely nothing. “I just thought you’d like to know that you mattered to him.”

“Well, that’s . . .” she swallows trying to digest it all, nodding a little. Then. “That’s complete crap.”

“What?”

“It is. It’s crap. So I’m a bright spot, ooooooh,” she waves her hands, “So what. If I mattered so much, why didn’t he ask me to come to Indy with him.”

“Maybe he didn’t feel that he could.”

“Oh come on, I practically threw myself at him. I told him I would go. That I didn’t mind moving up there for him.”

“Well maybe you should. Maybe you should mind. Maybe this is your home and your life and how is a guy supposed to ask you to leave that? How is some guy you’ve only known for weeks supposed to have the audacity to come in to your town and threaten your job and turn your department upside down and then say I know I’m ruining your life but I might be in love with you, so will you please-”

Suddenly it sinks in what he’s saying and how Ann’s looking at him and . . . Oh. Crap.

“Ah hah! I knew it!”

He shoots up from the chair, and makes his way over to the kitchenette. “Coffee. I think we need coffee. Do you want coffee?”

Ann unfortunately is not so easily distracted, ( _aren’t drunks supposed to be less tenacious than this?_ ). She follows him bending over the counter to smile at him in teasingly. “I knew those Bambi eyes you kept making at her meant something. Benji’s got a crush on Leeeeeesslie.”

Oh dear god, ‘Bambi eyes?’ Seriously? Has he actually been that obvious?

“I don’t- That’s not- Do you want sugar?”

“Leslie’s addicted to NutriYums and color coded post-its. She has never had a normal first date in her life, and she spends a disproportionate amount of her income on breakfast food.”

“Yeah, I know, like over a thousand dollars on waffles or something, right? Hey, do you want eggs?” He can’t help it, it’s his default mechanism. For some reason people find it a lot more difficult to yell at you when you’re offering food.

It seems to work on Ann because for a minute she doesn’t say anything, just blinks at him, stunned. Then, finally, she sinks down on the bar stool at the counter and stares up at him in shock.

“You really mean that?” she whispers, like he’s just offered a diamond ring or something. “You really want to cook breakfast at two in the morning?”

He has no idea why this is important, but at least they’re not talking about Leslie, so he shrugs. “Good a time as any if you’re hungry. So,” he holds up the pan, “eggs?”

Ann bursts into tears.

Not exactly the reaction he was going for.

“Hey, hey. I’m sorry. Um, look,” he sets down the pan, “no eggs. I promise.”

“You’re going to make her soooooo happy. And you’re going to take her away to Indy and I’m going to be stuck in Pawnee because Chris doesn’t want me, and I’m going to miss her sooooo much.” She’s openly sobbing now.

“Woah, wait, hold on. I’m not taking Leslie anywhere.”

“If you break up with her in the shower, I will hurt you. I can do it, too. I took Ron’s self-defense course.”

“Break up-? Who breaks up with someone in the shower?”

“I know, right? Or skywriting, why would you-” She shakes her head clear of the train of thought, then stares him down. “That’s not the point. The point is, hurt Leslie like that and I will come to you in your sleep and take you out.”

“Ooookay.” Ben murmurs quietly, because Ann Perkins, even a drunk Ann Perkins, is actually kind of scary. “Ann, look I don’t know what you think is going on, but I’m not going to take Leslie to Indy and I’m not going to break up with her because I’m not dating her, and I’m not going to.”

“Why not?! Don’t you think she’s pretty? Because she is, she’s perfect! Waaay too good for you.”

He finds himself unconsciously nodding along with her because she’s right. Leslie is totally perfect and far too good for him.

“So?” Ann presses.

“So what?”

“So why aren’t you wooing her?” Then something seems to occur to her and she looks at him with what can only be described as abject pity. “Oh you don’t actually think you are wooing her, do you? Oh sweetie. We need to help you.”

It’s official. This is actually the most manic, confusing, completely embarrassing conversation he has ever had in his entire life and that includes Cindy Eckert breaking up with him and Leslie Knope on flu medicine.

“I thought you didn’t want me to date her.” Why? Why is he even saying this? Still he can’t help but hold his breath a little for her reaction.

Ann narrows her eyes, evaluating him carefully. “Can you cook waffles?”

“No.”

She frowns at him.

“I can learn.”

Shutupshutupshutup. But it’s no use. He’s lost all control, maybe he lost it the moment he stepped in to Pawnee, or the moment Leslie Knope first shouted at him, or the moment she first smiled. Or maybe he’s been losing it slowly, piece by piece, little by little, until he’s absolutely defenseless, until his whole world has been reduced down to a town, a department and one woman’s happiness.

He doesn’t know, all he knows is he wants Ann on his side, because if she’s against him? Well, he’s seen enough of that friendship to know that’s it, game over.

And it doesn’t matter that he tells himself a dozen times a day that he isn’t playing. Here he is crossing his fingers that he hasn’t made the wrong move.

Finally Ann looks at him in all seriousness and says, “She gave me her guy.”

Ben sighs. One sentence. Is it really too much to hope for that he’d be able to understand one sentence? Still this feels important, feels like Ann’s trying to tell him something, so despite the sinking feeling in his gut at the possessive, he asks, “Her guy? You mean, Dave?”

“Nooo. No, not Dave. Dave loved Leslie. Like looooved her. Asked her to move to San Diego with him and everything.”

“Oh. And she didn’t- I mean of course she-”

“Pfffttt. Leslie would never leave Pawnee. It’s her whole world. Can you imagine her loving any guy as much as she loves this town?”

He can actually. In the unacknowledged fantasies in the farthest corners of his mind, Ben Wyatt has imagined exactly that.

“No. I’m talking about Mark.” Ann continues oblivious to the fact, she’s already pretty much reconfirmed all the reasons he will not be pursuing Leslie, just so he can have his heart broken into a million pieces. “Mark Brendanaquitz,” she corrects herself, “Brendanawicz.”

“She dated him?” He regrets it the moment the words are out of his mouth. Dear god it’s like a bruise you keep pressing. Like a scab you can’t help but pick at even though you know it’s going to hurt.

“No.” Ann shakes her head. “I mean aside from that one time, but still he was her guy, you know? The one that she was kind of waiting on.” Yeah, unfortunately Ben knows. “And she just gave him to me. Because she’s awesome. And Mark was a good, good guy and I broke his heart. And when I gave her my guy, he turned out to be a jerk. You’re not a jerk are you, Benji?”

“Not, um, not usually.”

“Good. Leslie deserves a non-jerk. And you seem to be okay with the catalog collecting and the bird houses and oh, did I tell you about the newspapers?”

“No. Why are you telling me about the newspapers again?”

“Because.” Ann rolls her eyes, “I’m not letting her go and fall in love with you only to have her heart broken when you discover her pack-rat tendencies or her breakfast food obsession. So come on,” she drums her hands on the counter-top, “out with it. What are your deal-breakers? This is your one chance to get out of this safely while she still doesn’t know how you feel. Because I swear if you hurt her.”

“Yes, pain beyond all imagining. Got it. But I’m not going to date her.” He holds up his hand before Ann can go on another tirade. “Ann, I’m leaving after Harvest Fest. In three weeks, four days and twelve hours, I’m supposed to move on to my next assignment. And like you said Leslie is never going to love any guy as much as she loves Pawnee. And however I might feel about her, there’s nothing I can do to change that." God it even hurts to say that out loud.  "But I'm okay with that.  Because she’s just-”

“Your bright spot.” Ann completes for him in a disconcerting display of coherence.

“Yeah,” he nods, “and I just. I want to keep that, okay?”

“No.”

He blinks. “No?”

“No. That’s the stupidest, most ridiculous excuse I have ever heard. What happened to clinging? If she’s so friggin’ brilliant and bright and wonderful, what happened to fighting to keep her? Is she not worth that? Huh?”

And he’s pretty sure this conversation has become half about Chris again, but Ann maybe, kind of has a point.

“Leslie is awesome. Leslie is the best damn thing that ever happened to you, and if you can’t figure out a way to hold on to that with email and cell phones and interstate highways, well you’re a jerk. And you told me you weren’t a jerk. Were you lying?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Okay, so wooing, get on that Bambi eyes.”

Then as if that’s the definitive end of the discussion ( _which he supposes maybe it is_ ), Ann gets up from the stool and stumbles towards his bed, flopping down on it in an awkward spread eagle.

“Sure, go ahead. Make yourself at home.”

Ann’s only response is a mumbled, “Thanks.”

He sleeps in the side chair by the window and wakes up with a stiff back, a headache, and a hungover Ann Perkins giving him the inside track on wooing Leslie Knope.

It’s a beautiful morning.


End file.
